And all the fuss over Al Jazeera America is what, exactly?

Tod Kelly

Tod is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. He is also serves as Executive Producer and host of both the 7 Deadly Sins Show at Portland's historic Mission Theatre and 7DS: Pants On Fire! at the White Eagle Hotel & Saloon. He is  a regular inactive for Marie Claire International and the Daily Beast, and is currently writing a book on the sudden rise of exorcisms in the United States. Follow him on Twitter.

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22 Responses

  1. Fahad says:

    I think you need to watch more of the coverage before you make a decision…I have lived with Al Jazeera (Arabic, English and now America) for most of my adult life…The glaring differences for me between AJAM and MSNBC and Fox:
    1) AJAM is non-partisan. Fox audiences would probably consider it to be left wing but that’s because they are ideologically invested and any media that is not right wing aligned would have to be considered invasive and destructive.
    2) I cant help but notice that MSNBC and Fox are too dramatic and over the top. When I watch their news coverage it actually makes me more stressed, less hopeful and more frustrated. I would rather just know the facts and make up mind about how I feel about a situation not to be subliminally told how to feel about it…
    The reason AJAM is needed in America is because Americans need “dull” news. Its less stressful, more informative and more reasonable. At the end of the day, your watching news not the Kardashians! If you compared AJAM to BBC (not CNN either), then, I think you might have more of an argument that its “same ole same ole”… Plus, have you seen AJAM’s international coverage…come on man, FOX and MSNBC aint got nothin on dem! :-pReport

  2. NewDealer says:

    Note: A lot of my liberal friends have praised Al Jazeera America as being much more in-depth and serious than any American news network or possibly source. They have ranked it up with the BBC.

    I think this is about showing liberal bona fides and that you are not Islamophobic or Xenophobic more than it is about anything dealing with whether they are a better news source. I’m sure there is also an air of cosmopolitanism about it. This is the kind of liberal-signaling about when someone says they prefer the Guardian to the New York Times.Report

    • KatherineMW in reply to NewDealer says:

      I don’t watch the news, but the BCC and Al-J are the main news websites I follow, and they are a good step ahead of US news sources (or the CBC, for matter). They cover a lot more of the world, rather than just focusing on events in Europe, North America, and “whatever part of the third world has been exploding lately”, so they give you a better sense of the state of the world, rather than just the state of the West. (They also seem slightly more inclined to call things that are bull, bull, although that varies from time to time and subject to subject.)Report

  3. Mike Schilling says:

    Many conservatives insinuate that the American citizens Al Jazeera America employs or is connected with are somehow traitors; this includes a former U.S. Vice President.

    Are you kidding? Gore is their main objection to Al Jazeera.Report

  4. Vikram Bath says:

    What about RT? I recall Hillary Clinton being in a huff about it, but I found it’s coverage to be of comparatively high quality. Of course, I was pretty much only watching the Alyona Show online, and I think it has since been canceled.Report

  5. trizzlor says:

    One of the main criticisms you had made of Fox News and MSNBC was that they had fused their news and editorial cycles together in a way that blurred the line between fact and opinion. That seems like a pretty significant con to play on your viewers, and if Al Jazeera isn’t playing it and also happens to have brunette hosts that would be a pretty big shift in the way 24hr news is currently run.

    P.S: “Some people say this is the second coming of Hitler while others say this is on par with an average radio news program. I think both are wrong” is so close to a false-equivalence you must’ve had to open a window when you wrote it.Report

  6. BlaiseP says:

    Al Jazeera is the BBC of Qatar.

    Americans are generally the worst-informed people on the planet. Contrary to assorted morons and xenophobic Fox News Types, Qatar is a staunch US ally, hosting US CENTCOM. Conservatives everywhere should be welcoming Al Jazeera with open arms: it’s everything they’d ever want in a nation. No minimum wage, great place to booze it up and make money, hell, the Qataris “support our troops” more than Americans do. And they hate Shari’a Law more than any Texas Baptist.

    Get a clue, Murka. Not all Ay-Rabs are beady-eyed terrorists. The very idea, attacking Al Jazeera America because Al Gore’s associated with it, well, it’s just plain dumb.Report

  7. Damon says:

    And here I thought this program was going to be incisive and present a perspective from outside america. Should I just watch the normal AJ?Report